Work with unions to resolve pay disputes

 

 

The implementation of a pay agreement between the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and tutors will come as a relief to various stakeholders who have grown increasingly uneasy about the wave of strikes sweeping across the country. It is expected that as the TSC starts to implement the Sh54 billion pay agreement, the ground will be set for future honest discussions between the commission and teachers.

It is our hope that the implementation of this agreement will add impetus to negotiations between other belligerent groups and improve labour relations across the sectors. This should include striking doctors and their employers whose protracted dispute over pay has resulted in hundreds of thousands of patients going without treatment for close to two months.

It is not just doctors who are on strike; lecturers in public universities downed their tools a week ago, paralysing learning in virtually all public tertiary institutions.

The merits of these strikes aside, Kenyans need services for the taxes that they pay and must continue to hold the national and county governments accountable. And this is why we must begin to see progress in the negotiation between the government and unions.

There is far too much bad faith between both levels of government and unions. And there is merit in the argument that this bad faith largely exists because State agencies often renege on negotiated agreements. This is why unions have often had to go to court to compel the government to honour Collecting Bargaining Agreements. Employers must work with unions to resolve pay disputes.